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60. Should the court grant the pilot's request?
At trial, the pilot defended against the airline's claim of failure to make full lease payments on the ground that the parties modified their agreement to permit reduced payments for those months. The pilot then tried to provide support for this defense, but the airline promptly objected, stating the pilot failed to include these issues in the pretrial order as issues for the district court to decide. The pilot asked the court to allow evidence on the modification issue on the basis that the pilot inadvertently omitted from the pretrial order.
An airline sued a pilot in federal court based on diversity jurisdiction for a breach of contract. One of the airline's claims against the pilot was based on the pilot's failure to make full lease payments for four months. In his answer to the airline's complaint, the pilot raised several issues, including a modification of the contract. However, the pilot failed to raise this issue at the final pretrial conference, and, as a result, this issue was excluded from the final pretrial order.
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A is correct. FRCP 16(e) states, «the court may modify the order issued after a final pretrial conference only to prevent manifest injustice.»
Here, the pilot failed to raise this issue during the parties' final pretrial conference, and there are no facts to support that the pilot will suffer a manifest injustice. Therefore, the court should not permit the pilot to put on evidence and make legal arguments supporting this defense.
B is incorrect. This answer reaches the correct conclusion with incorrect legal reasoning. This indicates the incorrect standard for the court to use in deciding whether the pilot should put on evidence of new legal arguments not raised in the final pretrial conference. Specifically, there is no rule that provides if the opposing party is prejudiced, then the other party is not permitted to make any defense or argument not included in their final pretrial order.
C is incorrect. The pretrial order is intended to supplant the pleadings and make them irrelevant. Therefore, this is a misstatement of the law.
D is incorrect. The pretrial order is intended to control the course of the action and is not to be modified except to prevent manifest injustice. The facts do not indicate that a refusal to modify this order would create manifest injustice. It was the pilot's own omission of the defense that caused his inability to make the arguments that he now seeks to make at trial.